Hearing on proposed cargo airport canceled in Schuylkill courthouse

Friday, November 19, 2010

By AL DIETZ tneditor@tnonline.com

The continuing hearing on the application of Gladstone Partners , Pittsburgh, to build a cargo airport on land partly in East Union Township and partly in Kline Township, Schuylkill County, which was scheduled to resume Thursday evening at the courthouse in Pottsville, was cancelled.

Attorney Christopher Hobbs, solicitor for the Schuylkill County Zoning Board, said the hearing has been halted by the East Union Township supervisors, who in the last minute have intervened in the proceedings.

The supervisors have filed an intervention action to have Judge John E. Domalakes make a ruling on which body has jurisdiction to act on the cargo airport application - the Zoning Hearing Board or the townships board which was appointed around the time the application was filed with the county zoning office.

Domalakes had earlier ruled on the jurisdiction but his order was that the county zoning hearing board should make its own decision on whether they had jurisdiction. When the hearings opened the county board ruled it had jurisdiction and the hearings began.

The intervention by the supervisors stays the hearing until the court rules.